She always dreamed of getting out from under her famous dad’s shadow — but not like this.

Julie Pacino, the daughter of silver-screen legend Al Pacino, revealed to The Post in her first interview since her drunken-driving bust how she’s struggled for recognition as a budding filmmaker, only to finally wind up in the headlines for what she called “a big mistake.”

“I never want it to happen again,” Pacino said of her July 30 arrest in Manhattan.

Julie, 21, has shied away from using daddy’s star power for anything, whether it’s to try to squirm out of legal trouble, or boost her fledgling career as a director, producer and writer.

“I was always raised with perspective, and my mom always kept me in check and made sure that I never felt entitled or that I deserved anything because of something that my father did,” said Julie, whose mother is acting coach Jan Tarrant.

As a little girl, Julie said, autograph-seekers would coo over her at restaurants, so to cope, she would hide under tables or pretend she was a deaf mute.

“My dad, being an actor, obviously got a huge kick out of that,” she said, chuckling.

Her parents put a camcorder in her hands at a young age.

“Even when I was by myself, I would shoot things — fake Snapple commercials and stuff like that,” she said.

As a 12-year-old, she began directing her friends in adolescent flicks. She even made one called “Not Another Al Pacino Movie” as a birthday present for her dad.

“We spoofed all of his films” in the homemade flick, she said.

One segment included her satirizing “Scarface,” with Julie starring as Colombian drug lord Antonia Montana. In the piece, her character hurls a toy dog at her enemies and says, “Say hello to my little friend.”

The gift of her camera inspired her lifelong passion for filmmaking.

Julie wound up dropping out of UCLA, where she played softball on a scholarship, to study film in Austin, Texas, through the New York Film Academy. But she eventually abandoned that schooling, too, instead choosing to jump right into work.

She and fellow filmmaker Jennifer DeLia operate Poverty Row Entertainment. The two work in a setting fit for a Corleone, a walkup office above a Little Italy restaurant complete with Frank Sinatra tunes and the fog of cigars.

The pad is adorned with artwork from the pair’s upcoming film “Billy Bates,” a full-length feature about a tormented artist.

Julie’s previous work, a dark, 12-minute short titled “Abracadabra,” screened at last year’s Cannes Film Festival.